The Adventure in Little Cheatham
by sweetelysium
Summary: Alternate universe where Watson is female and married to Holmes. A college chum of Holmes' dies under mysterious circumstances and he is called up. Also on AdultFanFiction.
1. Chapter 1 The Letter

The characters of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson belong to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and those who have control over the copyright. The other characters and plot herein are mine, as far as I know.

I basically ignore most canon, so sorry if you're a hardcore Sherlock Holmes fan. Canon seems to be pretty contradictory as to who Sherlock actually married. Although, I turned Watson into a woman, so I don't know why I'm so worried about cannon.

If this looks at all promising, please review and let me know. It'll give me warm fuzzies and warm fuzzies are always conducive to good writing.

Oh, yeah, this also the first thing I've written in like four years, so be gentle.

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As sometimes happens on the gray mornings that populate my days in England, I was roused from a warm and pleasant slumber by a servant rapping on my door.

"Sir," he said, "Sir, there is an urgent letter for you. A boy is waiting for your answer."

Ah, Robert, the first footman. There are more agreeable ways of greeting the day than being awakened by a sour-faced but ruthlessly efficient servant. I sometimes wondered if he wasn't troubled by a chronic bowel complaint, but I could never bring myself to breech his formidable countenance and enquire after the nature of his latest conversation with the servants' privy.

I drug myself from the snug comfort of my bed and grabbed my robe from the chair where it was draped. Belting it, I cracked the door and let my face show.

"He is yet asleep, Robert," I said, "but give me the letter and I will wake him." I snaked my arm out the door.

"Yes, madam," he said, placing the letter in my hand and then speaking again. "Shall I send a tea tray up, madam?" At the mention of breakfast, my stomach gave an insistent and plaintive demand for fried sausages and tomatoes on toast. Oh, the glories of English cuisine!

"No, Robert, no," regretfully said, "I imagine we will be down for breakfast shortly." I shut the door and immediately rid myself of my scratchy wrapper -- horrid object, it was a gift and I wore it only to please the giver. If there were one habit I could have retained from my unwed state, it would have been my neglect of propriety. I did not become a doctor in this unlikely age to avoid being seen in my drawers. I had seen worse and no doubt would continue to do so.

Walking back to the bed, I sat on the edge of the great thing and placed my hand on the chest of the man who slept there. A great man, clever beyond all knowing. My dear automaton, my colleague, my equal in stubbornness: my lover. I flexed my hand on the surface on which it rested. Firm but giving, smooth under the crisp, dark curls that covered it, it was as familiar to me as the sight of my own hand. Ah, I thought to myself, but the man it belongs to remains a mystery.

Yes, a mystery, most definitely a mystery. I had first met the lummox I sleep by nightly after I had returned, weak from typhoid and disillusioned by India, the only place desperate enough for doctors to accept a female skilled in medicine. His astounding arrogance had at first repelled me, but his genuinely good heart and dedication to the truth had trapped me. Yes, a mystery of a man, pledged by his very nature to solve that which he was made of.

I stroked his chest when done remembering and softly spoke. "Sherlock. Sherlock." I drummed my fingers on his sternum when he did not stir. "Sherlock, there is an urgent letter for you." I drummed again and his hand camp up and stilled mine. Wrapping his long fingers around my palm, he brought my hand to his mouth and kissed the tips of my fingers.

"My dear Watson," he said, eyes still closed. "There is always a letter and it is always an urgent one. No doubt there is a boy below, waiting for my reply. The handwriting on the envelope will be feminine and the envelope itself will be edged in black." He cracked and eye and smiled. "I know I am right; I am never wrong. You do not need to tense so much in wonder, my dear." 

"But, Sherlock, how do you know?" Always, I thought wryly, he knows.

"I smelled a new perfume. You wear rosewater; the new scent is lavender, which I know you abhor. Your hand smells of the black ink used by stationers for mourning paper. Therefore, the letter had to be written by a woman in mourning. The sorts of women who disturb newly married couples in the morning with letters are the same sorts who have boys wait for replies." His eyelid dropped down and his thumb ran lightly on my palm. He was obviously pleased that he could still shock me with his deductions, after so many years. I raised one corner of my mouth in a half-grin and wiggled an eyebrow.

"It is thoroughly disagreeable to see how perfectly your mind works even when still clogged with sleep." I tugged for him to release my hand, but he hesitated before doing so. He reached up and ran his hand from the crown of my head to where my braid ended at my hip and let his hand rest there.

"It was not my brain which did it; it was my nose." His fingers moved softly, warm through my linen nightdress. He opened his eyes fully and smiled once more, though for different reasons.

How odd that two avowed bachelors could find such happiness in each other, both in temperaments and more biblical matters.

"Read me the letter, doctor. It is thoroughly agreeable to me to hear your voice in the morning, when all night it has echoed through my happy dreams." I softened and started to open the letter. "Ah," he stopped me. "Careful of the seal. I will want to examine it later."

Unfolding the missive, smelling of lavender and edged in black, as my husband had so accurately deduced, I read:

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Loudon Hall, Little Cheatham, Somerset

November 17, 1888

Dear Sir,

You do not know me nor have we ever met. My late husband, however, Lord David Loudon, often spoke of the time he spent with you during your mutual studies at university. Shortly before his death, he had plans of contacting you to share those memories. You may recall him -- a man of no more than middling height, but of infinite compassion. His unexpected and unwelcome passing has left hole of inestimable size in the lives of all who knew him.

It was while clearing my husband's desk that I came across your address and decided to write you, recalling the great success you had in discovering the truth behind the death of Sir Charles Baskerville. There are certain circumstances surrounding my husband's death which lead me to suspect that it is not the simple thing it was made out to be. If you are a gentleman (and I know you are), you will come at once to Loudon Hall and examine the matter. Until then, I remain your humble servant,

Lady Samantha Loudon

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I handed the letter to Sherlock and studied him while he studied it. "It appears, Sherlock, that she has insulted your honor as a gentleman. What will you do?" He sighed and lowered the letter.

"David Loudon. Yes, I remember him. I am saddened to hear of his death. He was not extraordinary, but a good man." He scratched the underside of his chin, where his beard lay as a curiously auburn shadow. "It is as his wife says -- he was ever aware of the needs and conditions of those around him." I watched him, knowing already that we would be leaving shortly for Somerset.

Sherlock took the hand that still laid at my hip and brought it up to the back of my head, pulling me down for a hard and affectionate morning kiss.

"Well, my dear Dr. Watson-Holmes, how does a holiday in Somerset sound? Little Cheatham is a lovely resort town, a perfect excuse to suddenly leave London." He tucked a wayward strand of hair behind my ear and cupped my cheek.

I smiled against his lips. From the tone of his voice, I would not be getting my full English breakfast that day.

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What do you think? Review and I will heap blessings on you and your children and your children's children and hopefully by that point, all those blessings will render your children's children's children so lucky that they'll win the lottery and have no need of some weird old lady's blessings.


	2. Chapter 2 Travel

Disclaimer: I don't own the Holmes-verse any more than I own a patent for chicken spectacles. The original characters introduced here-in, however, are mine, as is the plot, as far as I know.

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"That breakfast really was sub par, Holmes. I do not understand how you expect me to exist on dry toast and tea." We were on a train, headed for the western shore and Somerset. 

From behind his newspaper, Sherlock spoke. "Your toast could hardly be called dry after you finished ladling marmalade on it." He lowered the paper. "And you've been reading Nietzsche again. You only call me 'Holmes' when you've reading him."

"Oh, but Sherlock, it's perfect rot -- 'Let woman be a plaything, pure and simple as a priceless gem reflecting the virtues of a world which is not yet here1.'" In anger, I snapped closed the small volume I had been reading. "How utterly ridiculous; I have done things no man has dreamt of doing and yet some sickly German seems intent on spelling out what a woman is to do. What I am to do." At a sudden niggling in my brain, I was prompted to ask, "Do you think me a plaything? I do not think I could stand it if you did." This question was just as, if not more, ridiculous as anything from Nietzsche. My husband, who had been my friend long before, knew me first as an equal and second as an owner of complementary genitalia.

"My darling, if I thought you a plaything, I would not have married you, as you would not have remained in my presence long enough to make a favorable impression. Besides," he said, returning to his Times, "better Nietzsche's dangerous plaything than Darwin's inferior creature."

"You would bring Darwin into this." I began idly rummaging through my reticule, looking for a box of mints I knew I had left in there.

"I admire his brain. He goes from what he has observed firsthand and from that derives a theory to explain why things are what they are. There is something admirable in that, don't you think?" He looked as if were going to say more, but stopped when the letter Lady Loudon had sent fluttered from my reticule. "Curious that," he said as he stooped forward to retrieve it from where it lay against his boot.

"What is it, Sherlock?" I asked, still scrabbling.

"There are several hairs caught in the sealing wax on the envelope." He showed me. "The color is quite odd -- almost orange. It hardly seems a natural color at all. I do not know why I did not see it before," he said, tucking the letter and hairs into the pocketbook he had withdrawn from inside his Inverness.

Having discovered my mints, I sat back, contentedly letting one dissolve on my tongue, while noting the promise of rain the clouds held. "What do you remember of David Loudon, my love?"

"He was short and dark-haired, Roman in appearance. He was dedicated to helping others and was, in fact, destined for the clergy before his elder brother died and he was suddenly heir to his father's title. Loudon was several years older than I and we spent only a little time together, boxing, before he was called home. I do not remember hearing that he had married, then."

"Maybe that had happened only recently."

"Johanna," he said, deadly serious, "one should never guess. One may form hypotheses from what one knows. Once one begins guessing, there is no telling what paths the mind may take next."

***

Upon arriving in Little Cheatham, we found that the boy who had waited for our reply had beaten us by several hours. There was a coach waiting for us at the station, even though it was already full dark and the earlier promise of rain had increased from a mist to drops as round and heavy as pennies.

The coachman came forward, cap in hand. Bobbing his head, he said, "Good evenin', sir, ma'am. I'm Hobbes, coachman for her ladyship. 'Tis dark times that bring the likes of you hereaboot, but it's proud I am to be meeting someone as grand as yourself and," nodding in my direction, with a smile, "your lady."

It is a little difficult to begin to describe the likes of the man we would come to know as Robert Hobbes. Sometimes Rabbie, sometimes, Rob, sometimes even Bert, he possessed an accent that veered widely from northern farmer to highland Scot to country Irish. I have met many Roberts in my life, but never one that could be both Rab and Rob. What more can I say? He was changeable but not mercurial.

I, understandably after a full day's worth of traveling, was more than happy to play the role of quiescent wife while Sherlock finagled information out of Hobbes. I strained to hear the conversation they had as we walked across the station courtyard, but the wind stole both voices from me. The walk, at any rate, was a short one and I soon found myself being handed up into the carriage. Sherlock remained outside, ostensibly to oversee the loading of out luggage, but mostly to eavesdrop on the footmen and to plumb Hobbes for information. 

The male voices blended with the rain to a drowsy hum within the snug coach. I let my head rest against the seat and began to contemplate reasons a man could die -- any man. There are natural causes, war, accidents, suicide, and murder, the one my husband and I keep seeming to run into. Oh, and the motives for murder: revenge, self-defense, love, money . . . always coming back to money. What will be the case here? I asked myself. Will it be a simple apoplectic fit gone the worst way or a well-placed belladonna capsule?

Such morbid but provocative thoughts.

I was shaken out of my reverie by Sherlock climbing into the coach while saying, "Yes, thank you, Hobbes. I am glad the ride is a short one."

"Well," I said through a yawn, "What have you discovered?"

"Several things of interest and maybe a few of note. Our host, Lady Samantha, is young -- no more than twenty-two. Furthermore, there was quite a scandal when Loudon married her. She's not of the 'privileged' class and he was at least fifteen years older than her. Lady Samantha has also made herself known for having a temper -- a 'ravin' madwoomon' as Hobbes put it."

Leaning drowsily into his shoulder, I said, "But what is of importance and what of note?"

"That, my dear, will become clear with time." And we rode in silence until passing through the gates.

***

The drive of Loudon Hall curved between copses of mixed woods -- pine, oak, and beech. There were also a few maples and other showy autumn trees present, still clinging doggedly to their now tattered foliage. The lamps of the carriage cast light oddly on these shabby trees, the shadows moving rapidly and twisting into silhouettes evocative of many things before leaping back into charcoal blurs. There was a certain fey quality to all of this -- the shadows, dashing around the weathered stones that reared between the trees, could have been faerie queens and kings bent on causing mischief for those mortals unlucky enough to be about on this dark night.

Absurdity, I know, but the day seemed dedicated to it. 

Suddenly, very close to the road, I saw the figure of a man. He was solid, no mere blocking of the light. The skin of his face, very white, shone by itself, the carriage lamps causing hard highlights to gleam at brow, cheeks, nose, and jaw. Dark hair swept down either side of his face and curled under his jaw, so as to cause his face to dissociate from his body, his tall collar and hair blending into one. The details of the rest of his appearance were lost in the dark, but he was tall and his coat buttoned loosely with large buttons, which caught the light in much the same manner as his face. Chiaroscuro, I thought, abstractedly. This presence seemed at once flat and too sharply perfect to be merely three-dimensional. All this in a moment and yet the image is still lodged in my brain.

Brought forcefully out of my drowse, I jabbed Sherlock perhaps too enthusiastically in the ribs and hissed, "Did you see that? The man, did you see him? Have I gone mad?"

"No, no," he assured me, as fully awake as I, "I saw him. Tall, white-faced?"

I nodded. Precisely. It was not my thoughts of faeries, then, that brought this figure into my mind.

"There is a perfectly reasonable answer to all this," he said, determined to be logical. I, however, was shaken and placed my fingers on his lips. His hand followed and wrapped around my wrist. His hand held a tremor and I could feel the pulse of his heart through his palm, as I knew he could feel mine through my wrist. Both were rapid, but subsiding. I licked my lips, mouth dry.

"Let us not speak of it until we reach our room. The dark does me no favors when it comes to thinking. And I am tired. My stockings and skirt hems are damp. Let me be warm again and we will speak of it."

By this time, we had arrived at Loudon Hall. 

1Nietzsche, Friedrich. "Woman as a Dangerous Plaything". History of Ideas on Woman. Editor: Rosemary Agonito. NY: Perigee Books: , 1977. pp. 267-269

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Sorry about the references to Victorian philosophers in here. (I know, I know, Darwin's not really a philosopher, but his description of the origin of the differences between the sexes . . . I see it as a justification of the view of women as the weaker sex.) Nietzsche seems almost to have a fear of women -- dangerous playthings, indeed. I'm sorry to say, but Dr. Watson acts as a vessel for my own opinions on those particular thinkers. If I could have figured a way to get Engels in there, I would have; I loves me some Engels. And Emerson too! They wouldn't even have been in there if Mom hadn't given me a book called "History of Ideas on Woman". It's awesome, quite frankly. And reading Nietzsche seemed a suitable middle-class Victorian thing to do, especially for someone as forward thinking as a lady doctor.

To those who have bitten the bullet and reviewed, I salute you! Your blessings are in the mail.


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